h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First of all, that cat has a gorgeous tawny orange coat. I would love to catnap that cat and enjoy its company -- as long as I could cajole someone else to change the litter box and bother with feeding. See, I am slothful in ways that some people don't appreciate .

I also love the yellow in the upper lefthand corner. It's good to get yellow into pictures of cats, because very few cats are actually yellow. The closest they come is a pale tan, which is pretty in and of itself, but yellow it's not.

The best arrangement is for Mr. Moore (who lives in my park and has an orange cat named Milo) to let Milo roam free. I like to see Milo in my yard (or any yard that I'm near, for that matter).

I think I've blown my cover as a grumpy old man. I guess I'm like my fater, who kept insisting that he didn't like cats (due to an unfortunate experience in his youth), but once he got used to a particular cat, he made an exception, and soon grew very fond of it.

There was whole thread on British Twitter yesterday with photos of 'grumpy old men' outted by their offspring as secret friends.

I'm glad you like TJ. Because TJ likes everybody. When the doorbell rings, Molly goes and hides. Hoggetts haven't seen her in person since she was a kitten. But TJ and Lola the dog run to the door, because someone might play with them. TJ will run in front of people, flop on the floor and roll around, begging for a pet.

As I mentioned, my father had a horrible experience with a cat in his late teens. It wasn't the cat's fault, nor was it my father's. My father had only one shot at a college education: staying in his uncle's house in Toledo, Ohio, while attending the University of Toledo. One of my father's key chores around his uncle's house: vacuuming up the hairs form a white longhaired cat. The cat had a *lot* of hair, and my father's aunt was very strict about getting *all* the hairs removed. This was why my parents didn't have any cats in the house until after I went away to college. By then, of course, enough stray cats had appeared in the area to finally be allowed inside.

Anyway, I grew up with no cats as pets. We had dogs, which was hardly a good deal. My sister's first dog managed to get himself killedi n a losing argument with a truck. Her second dog lived a lot longer, but snapped at me rather a lot. (Of course, that dog snapped at lots of people, including anyone who was unlucky enough to deliver papers). When I finally got dog of my own, she got killed in the road before she was a year old.

Is it any wonder that I would gravitate to goldfish when I reached adulthood?

So much to enjoy in the photo indeed!

I love your smiley cushions, DG I found a crane machine full of tiny smiley cushions in a pub last year, so I couldn't resist it - it was a 'prize every time' machine so it vindicated the frustrations of my childhood in amusement arcades where the crane machines were 'prize never', and I got a cute smiley too

That is a great posture by TJ

Fascinating the different personalities cats have - I wouldn't guess Molly was so shy from the videos and photos but I can imagine TJ is more gregarious!

My dad was quite like your father, paulh - in his youth cats were animals that stayed outside on the farm, but he enjoyed pet cats in later years. If he touched the cat brush, one of the cats would scarper, but the other would immediately jump up on his lap to get a thorough grooming!

When I meet cats out and about, they are generally scared of the wheelchair, so they don't get close enough for me to touch them. However, I did know one cat that had been run over but survived, so she was a bit disabled - she found a technique to climb up on my lap so we could have a cuddle and we were outdoors so I didn't get allergic

That's beautiful .

Cleveland Amory said that there were two cats in the office of Greenpeace. One of the cats didn't get along with anyone. The other cat got along with *everyone*. Amory wrote several books about Polar bear, a white cat who wandered in on Christmas one year and stayed. The last book was called "Best cat ever."

Those are great stories. I can imagine your dad's stress, Paul. Back in the day, a lot of people had rough times getting through college.

My dad's first job after he got his engineering degree was, alas, as a meter reader for the city utility company. The meters were outside, and small dogs would bite him. He said some of them hid in the tall grass to ambush him. (He was also at this point a combat veteran, and PTSD may have played a part.)

So he wasn't keen on dogs. Until we got Ariel the Wonder Shih Tzu. Everybody loved Ariel, and he loved everyone back. My dad and stepmother got themselves a dog, which made me feel better - not only did they have companionship in their declining years, but the dog let them know when someone was at the door.

I'm glad you found a , Sasha! The big one we have is the best Walmart purchase I ever made. It belongs to the cats, you know.

The cat incident was just the start of my father's troubles, Dmitri. He left college after only one year so he could work to support his mother -- his father died of ALS, and my grandmother had a nervous breakdown from dealing with all of it . The one bright spot was that he met my mother in college. Oh, and he was also in the Army Air Force during World War II.

When I was a kid, I didn't appreciate all the sacrifices he made at an age when he might otherwise have been studying for a good career, or hanging out with fellow students. It was only in later life that I got to know him at all well. Shy people tend to hide their feelings.

I hear you. That generation didn't open up easily.